Corrie Boss Blackburn says BAFTA wrong with ‘Enders soap gong

Coronation Street boss Stuart Blackburn has suggested the BAFTA judges were ‘out of touch’ with popular opinion and the state of rival EastEnders following Corrie trouncing the BBC saga at The British Soap Awards.

The Mirror newspaper report the former Emmerdale producer, who took over Corrie earlier this year, said:

“EastEnders has not had a brilliant year and Corrie’s at its best. But them’s the breaks… There were six, seven people on that panel, they made a decision. They were clearly wrong.”

Blackburn isn’t the only one to suggest BAFTA, going off one episode only, were wrong to give it to the dumbed down teen-aimed EastEnders.

On ATV Today viewer, Dean Watson, said:

“Well done to Natalie Gumede, Patti Clare, Alan Halsall, Nigel Havers and Corrie! Well deserved! … On the other hand EastEnders didn’t win a thing – apart from a special award for Adam Woodyatt – I think this goes to prove that viewers are waking up and realising what a joke Eastenders has become.”

While Pauline Bennett agreed:

“‘Gone’ are the real characters like Pat, Pauline, Peggy, Rose and Heather and now we’re subjected to dull as ditch water plots and young ‘characters’ like Tyler, Lola, Dexter, Joey, Alice, Fat Boy and the utterly appalling Lucy! There are still some good characters in that show.. but sadly they all seem overshadowed by the new wave of young, bland characters.”

ATV telly critic Queenie noted:

“Nice to see the British public are more savvy than the BAFTA lot. Rather than one good episode, out of hundreds of appalling ones, leading to a ‘soap gong’ – we rightly have Corrie top for many brilliant episodes of classic drama and comedy.”

ITV mainstay Coronation Street took eight gongs at last weekend’s British Soap Awards, Hollyoaks for Channel 4 came away second best with five and two for  other ITV saga Emmerdale. EastEnders only managed one and that was a lifetime achievement award for long running ‘Enders actor Adam Woodyatt.

“He’s been in it so long, he’ll remember when [EastEnders] used to be worth watching” said Queenie, adding “Thats how far back you have to go for real quality.”

EastEnders fell behind Emmerdale in a head-to-head ratings battle last week. The London based saga fell to 5.2 million on Tuesday with the Yorkshire set counterpart pulling in 7.5 million.

Its a continued success story for Emmerdale which in the 1970s and early 80s rarely managed to enter the ITV Top 10 programmes chart and until 1988 was the fourth watched UK soap behind Coronation Street, EastEnders and Crossroads. Since those days its transformed itself into a serious primetime competitor to the BBC rival.

Full winners list can be found here.

[Pictured top left: Corrie creator Tony Warren with Stuart Blackburn at the soap awards on Saturday]